


we're never done with killing time, can i kill it with you?

by commonemergency



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Aged-Up Characters (16/17 years old), Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marijuana, Underage Drinking, background hanbrough, richie gets a bad high
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:27:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23189221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commonemergency/pseuds/commonemergency
Summary: He feels Eddie’s fingers in his hair, it makes Richie open his eyes and Eddie is staring down at him with a look that he doesn’t understand.“You’re okay, just close your eyes.” Eddie’s whispers, and his fingers feel like magic. He wants to stay like this forever.“I don’t know why I’m so fucked up.” Richie laughs, his fingers digging into the stuffed animal that doesn’t deserve it. He releases it because it doesn’t feel good and his arms fall at his side and they’re heavy. Everything is just so fucking heavy.(or, Richie gets a bad high and Eddie calms him down.)
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 21
Kudos: 145





	we're never done with killing time, can i kill it with you?

**Author's Note:**

> i'm going through it, so i decided to write about it.
> 
> op is a lightweight so i decided to make richie also a lightweight.

Richie was four months into working at the comic book store when he got the notice that they were firing him. It’s not that he did anything particularly wrong—it’s just that he didn’t do anything particularly right either. He tried his best though, the guy before him was a college student working part time that had a system that worked for _him_ and Richie, according to his boss, had screwed all of that up. It wasn’t his fault, he said, it’s just that Richie was young. His boss said that he didn’t blame him. _You still have time to learn, son._

Richie wanted to say, _Don’t call me son._

But instead he stood there, hands in his jeans, looking down at the floor that he just recently swept. The door jingled and it was his coworker who looked at both of them before nodding his head to go to the back of the store. 

Richie wasn’t a crier, but for some reason he felt like crying right now as the guy placed his hand on his shoulder like this was some great loss for him when he knows that he probably already had a replacement for him just ready to start at any given moment. (Okay, he thinks, probably not but he was nothing if not a little dramatic.) 

His father once told him what he should say if something like this happened, it showed responsibility. 

So Richie reached out and said, “Thank you for the opportunity.” There was more to it, but he felt a little nauseous walking over towards his little space behind the counter and grabbed his walkman, his tapes, a yellow yoyo, he stuffed it all in his backpack and then he was gone. He walked around the back to grab his bike and then headed home. 

It was dusk, and it was getting colder now and darker earlier, he always dreaded this time of year because of it. He thought of how much of a pain it would be for him to head home every night when it was dark when he got out of work but he supposed he didn’t have to worry about that now. His mother didn’t like him driving in the dark so that was shot on top of him not even having his own car yet. The job was meant to save up for that but it wasn’t meant to be. 

Richie was bummed and he didn’t know why. 

*

When he got home he parked his bike and walked in through the garage and placed his backpack on the stairs to grab it when he eventually went up. There was one light on in the kitchen with a plate sitting in the middle of the counter with a note from his parents saying that they were going to the movies with some friends. Richie sighs, reading it over again before throwing it away and heating his plate up in the microwave and grabbed a soda from the fridge. 

He turned the radio on, he used to always miss his favourite radio host at this time because of work, there were rare occasions of him being able to listen while on his shift when the boss wasn’t around with his coworker, both of them nodding their head to the music. They bonded over those shifts and late nights of reorganising missed placed books. 

He didn’t know his coworker that well but he was cool and quiet and laughed when Richie told jokes. He tried out some of his voices on him to see if he was really as bad as his friends said he was (even though he didn’t really believe them and it was all out of love). He sighs, thinking of how he walked to the back as if he already knew Richie’s fate. _Fuck it_ , he thought, _it didn’t matter._

He ate his dinner quickly, turning the radio off and grabbing his backpack before he ran up the stairs and into his room. It was so dark now, he thinks about the fact that this is how it normally is when no one is home, and how lonely it feels. He bites down on his bottom lip, standing in the darkness before finally grabbing his things out of his backpack and reaching under his bed for his secret box and grabbing his cigarettes and matches out and walking over to his window so he can sit on his roof. 

He lit his first cigarette, drawing his knees up to his chest and closed his eyes. 

He took a drag from his cigarette fingers tapping against his knees, never truly ever being able to stand still. He supposes that was one of the problems. He was always everywhere at once, he couldn’t just stand behind the counter he had to be doing something. It could have made him a better employee if he didn’t fuck up so much he supposed. 

Richie was just convinced that he wasn’t able to really do anything right. He was average. Mediocre at everything at best. 

He shakes his head at himself, taking another drag and flicking the ash. 

Richie tried to shut off his thoughts for a while but it kept circling back to how excited he was to be going to work because despite his chaos he really liked having this small little routine. He liked being able to read all the new comic books that came in, liked being able to phone Eddie ahead of time to let him know that he should come down before they get sold. He liked it when Eddie would come just to come and bring him dinner. Or when Bev would walk over for a quick smoke break. It was a new hangout place for the losers club, making fun of Richie while he was on the job, and getting them into comic books because for a while it had just been Richie and Eddie’s thing. 

He’s about to go deeper in these thoughts until he hears the phone ring inside. 

“Fucking shit.” He says stabbing his cigarette on the roof and running inside and down the stairs to the phone. 

“Tozier residents?” He’s out of breath and his lungs feel like they’re on fire.

“Richie?” It’s Bill. “Are y-you busy t-tonight?”

“Nope.” Richie drums his fingers on the counter. “You have a plan?”

“Jessica is h-having a p-party tonight.” 

Richie knows where this is going.

“Say no more, I’ll meet you there.” 

Richie flew back up stairs and got ready as fast as he could spraying lysol near his window before closing it. 

He grabbed a thicker flannel and put it on not bothering to try and tame his hair right now, it was late no one would care and he certainly didn’t care what people thought of his hair. He went back down stairs and wrote down on the notepad that he was sleeping over at Bill’s and that he’d be back tomorrow morning, and then he was out the door. 

He wished he had a car. He wished his mom let him use her car, but she was right in not letting him drive it especially at night because he can barely see shit now. He laughs at the thought of him attempting to ride his bike back to Bill’s house knowing that he’ll probably at the very least get high. He’s had a shitty night and he deserved it.

Jessica lives on the other side of town just right at the very edge of Derry in a nice big house that has a full pool in the backyard. There was one summer where Richie tried to convince his dad that they needed a pool, saying that all they needed to do was just dig a big ole hole and they were halfway there. His dad never agreed to it, but it was probably for the best. 

He rests his bike by the side of the house and walks towards the front door, looking around for Bill and whoever else got invited to this thing. He knows that he won’t find Eddie here. There’s a certain time where they weren’t allowed to call Eddie, and it was far too late now. He says hi to a couple of classmates before walking towards the back to the kitchen.

He sees Bill standing next to Bev, both of their heads are thrown back and they’re chugging beer. Richie smiles walking faster towards them and poking them both in the stomach which makes them both react. 

“Dickhead!” Bev says with a smile, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. She slams the beer can on the counter. 

“I won, Denbrough.” 

“Fuck!” Bill is laughing, nodding his head at Richie. 

“Okay, it’s you against me, Bev.” Richie’s grin is wicked, grabbing another beer can from the big cooler. 

Bev is staring at him so intensely. She’s got a mirroring grin. Bill counts down from five and Richie opens the can right as he says go and starts chugging like his life depends on it. He takes pride in being able to down the beer faster than Bev who was always a reigning champion. 

He tries to choke down the burp but he fails. 

“Disgusting.” Bev smiles, shaking her head. 

Richie holds onto his stomach, leaning against the counter. 

“Is this it then?” He doesn’t see Ben or Mike, he knows that Stan hates coming to these things and probably said no.

“It was l-late n-notice.”

Richie nodded, grabbing another beer that he didn’t intend on chugging. 

“Smoke?” Bev held up her pack of cigarettes and Richie smiled. 

Richie followed Bev outside and they sat out on the lawn. 

He can hear the music playing in the background, he nods his head along to it, plucking a cigarette from the box and waiting for Bev to roll the lighter and then he leans back, lying down so he can stare at the stars. It’s not that it was hard to find them. They lived in Derry, it was small enough for you to be able to see the stars and not wonder where they’ve gone. Richie has never been anywhere that wasn’t Maine but he sometimes wondered what it was like to live a life that was outside of here. He liked to think that he could thrive in some place like California and New York City. He thinks that maybe he could hand in not being able to see the stars for a little awhile in exchange for leaving this small town that he had already outgrown. 

“Bill’s sad.” Bev says, joining him by lying down too. 

“Why’s that?” Richie questions, trying to find a pattern in the stars. 

“He really wanted Mike to come.” 

_Oh._

Richie gets it.

“Once we all get out of Derry it’ll be better.” Richie says with some faint hope, “I want to believe so at least. There’s gotta be people like us out there somewhere.” 

“I think that there’s more going on that we don’t know about—or what they think that we don’t know about.” Bev blows a big cloud of smoke and Richie reaches up to swipe a hand through it. 

Richie briefly thinks about Eddie, it’s hard not to. He wonders what he’s doing, because he’s also wishing that someone was here. He’s probably in bed by now, reading with his night lamp underneath his covers with the blanket that Richie gave him as a present. His grandma used to crochet blankets for birthdays and Christmas presents, for some reason the colours always reminded him of Eddie. He had gotten his grandma’s permission to re-gift it because she knew Eddie and loved him. Everyone in Richie’s family did. 

He thinks back to that one summer, they were fifteen and Eddie had spent the entire day with him, there was meant to be a small family reunion at the Tozier house and Richie had forgotten about it but Went and Maggie didn’t care that Eddie stuck around with it, they had considered him family a long time ago and just gave him something to do to help them prepare. Eddie met all of Richie’s family and they all cooed over Eddie because he was just _such a nice boy!_ and his aunts would tug on Richie’s cheeks and say with a wink, _too nice for you._

Richie knew that it was true. 

Eddie was so entangled in Richie’s life it just felt like something was missing when he wasn’t here. He feels something stuck in his throat and he knows that it’s not the smoke. 

“I think I understand.” Richie says after a while. “I think I get it a little.”

He turns to look at Bev who’s mouth curls up a little. 

Richie closes his eyes. 

“Oh! Yeah, I meant to ask you about work. How’s it going?” 

And then his stomach drops. He bites down on his lip.

“It was….. Normal. Just. Boring. Super boring.” 

Bev eyes him for a second, noticing the tone change because of course she does. 

“Yeah?” 

Richie just nods. “Yeah.” 

Richie didn’t know why he just didn’t tell her the truth. He supposed that he just wanted her to believe that he was capable of actually maintaining something without ruining it. 

“You can tell me anything, Richie.” She reaches out and touches his shoulders before sitting up. “I’m going to find Bill, I’m sure he’s probably moping somewhere in a corner.” She messes with the top of his head before walking away. 

Richie watches her leave, sitting up himself. He’s at the end of his cigarette too. He sighs, shaking his head. 

_Get up. Put a brave face on, kid._

He’s back in the house now, the music is very loud and he can’t really hear himself think. He tries to look for Bev and Bill but they’re nowhere in the front rooms, he pushes past groups of people and looks in the bedrooms. He knocks before opening any door having scarred himself one too many times by not knocking. He can hear the music vibrating the house though. He sighs, until he finds them in a room on top of a washer and dryer, and Bill has a glass pipe in his hands and Bev is sitting next to him with a bottle of vodka that’s halfway gone already. It doesn’t look like she’s been drinking it, just holding it in her hands. 

“Not good?” Richie asks, staring down at Bill who’s slumped, head leaning against the wall. 

“Not good.” Bev replies, reaching out to place a hand on Bill’s back. 

They were all pining over someone who maybe did or didn’t want them back. 

“Let me take that away from you buddy.” Richie reaches out for it, sitting on the ground and pulling up his legs so he can fit. 

“F….” Bill starts to say before sighing. “Fuck off.”

“I feel that.” Richie grins up at him, tapping the side of his leg. 

“He’s gone.” Bev’s smile is small, she’s still rubbing his back. 

_I’m sad too._ He thinks, and then he grabs the lighter from Bev to light the bowl and takes three hits from it. 

He rests his head against the wall and reaches for the bottle of vodka that Bev is holding. He doesn’t ask how she got it (or the weed for that matter), he can only assume she had to confiscate it from Bill. He shakes his head a little, twisting the cap off, smelling the inside before his face shrivels up at how awful it smells. He takes a drink of it anyway. 

Bill is heartbroken, Richie lost his job. So it goes. 

“Well, thank God I’ve only had the two beers because I just know I’m going to have to get you fools home somehow.” Bev grabs her pack of cigarettes and puts one in between her mouth and reaches over to open the small window overlooking the yard. 

“You’re better than all of us, Marsh.” Richie says with a smile, tipping the bottle back again. 

Bill groans. 

Bev smiles. “I know.” 

He’s a lightweight. He feels the vodka go straight to his head, can still feel the warmth in his stomach. 

Bill gets up slowly.

“Whoa.” She says, trying to hold her arms as if she could catch him if he did fall. Richie gets up too and sets the pipe on the now free space of the laundry. 

“Where are you going?” He asks Bill who just decides to flop on the floor. 

Richie sits back down on the floor too confused by the whole thing.

“If we’re going to do this, we’re doing this right.” Richie manhandles Bill, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling him up to rest in his lap. Bill peeps open his eyes and stares up at Richie giving him a confused look. 

“W-what are y-you doing?” Bill reaches up and Richie moves his head out of his way and grabs Bill’s fingers. 

“I’m trying to comfort you.” 

“Y-Your thighs are b-boney.” 

Bev snorts, shaking her head. 

“Your head is too big for your fuckin’ body.” Richie reaches for Bill’s nose and honks it. 

Bill closes his eyes again and doesn’t say anything moving his hand over his face to shield himself from the light and then he huffs and Richie rolls his eyes. 

“Can you hand me the pipe?” He reaches out for it and Bev passes it to him. 

Richie takes another hit before handing it back. He closes his eyes too, resting his head on the wall again and taking small breaths. 

“You um,” Bev starts to say, making direct eye contact with Richie for a moment before looking away. “You seem sad.” 

Richie smiles a little. 

“I’m doing great Bev.” He says, eyes examining the warning label on the bottle of vodka. “I’ll tell you about it soon.” 

“Okay.”

He can feel Bill’s free hand pat Richie’s cheek, or well he’s trying to aim for his cheek but he gets the front of his face. 

“Thank you Stoned Bill.” Richie grabs his hand and squeezes it before placing it on top of his stomach. 

Bev starts talking about the recent fight she had with her aunt, Richie listens and tries to make her laugh because he knows that it’s a complicated thing to talk about, but he starts to feel his heart rate go up a bit and his body kind of feels like it’s buzzing in a bad way. He tries to calm himself down by taking small deep breaths. 

“You still with us, Bill?” Richie looks down at Bill who looks like he’s moving in waves but it’s just Richie’s vision. He reaches out for him and his skin is warm, or maybe it’s Richie that’s warm, he can’t really tell anymore. 

“Mmph.” Bill says. “Rooms…. Rooms spinning.” He eventually gets out. 

Richie looks up at Bev and he tries to focus on her but his heart feels like it’s going faster than he can handle, he places a hand on his own chest just to try and see if he can feel it. He can, and he tries to control his breathing but he feels like he’s hyperventilating and he looks at Bev again and she isn’t looking at him like something is wrong. 

He knows that it’s all in his head. 

“Richie?” Bev says, it’s so loud to him and so far away at the same time. 

“Yeah?”

He can hear his heartbeat in his ears, it sounds like tiny drums. 

“What’s happening?” She asks. 

Richie has to repeat what she’s asking him a couple of times. 

“I don’t know.” He says, looking around the small little room that they’re in. “I’m just… high.” 

Bev cracks a small smile. “I know, but you’re sweating a little.” 

Richie reaches up to touch his forehead and it feels like it’s burning against his fingers but he doesn’t necessarily trust himself to know if that’s true or not, but he does feel the sweat on the tips of his fingers. 

“It’s hot in here.” He manages to get out, placing his hand back down on Bill’s chest. 

Bill doesn’t even feel like a real person right now, but he can feel his weight on him more than he did before. 

“I’m trapped.” Richie says, looking back up at Bev.

“You’re not. We’re in a tiny room and you’ve got Bill on you. You’re okay.” 

Richie tries to nod at that but he’s thinking about how trapped he is despite knowing that they’re able to open the door and get out. 

He sees that Bev gets down off the laundry machine and sits next to Richie, she places a hand on his forehead. It’s cold, but it’s grounding. She moves the hair out of his face and then walks over to the window and opens it more to let some of the cold air in. Richie appreciates it but quite frankly he just wants to lay on the grass and let the wind take him where it may.

“My body is like. Vibrating.” Richie isn’t sure that he said it loud enough. He’s not sure if he’s even talking. His vision is a little off, everything seems so close or so far away at the same time and he knows that if he says that out loud it won’t make sense. 

Bev reaches out to touch him, he can hear her count to five. 

“You’re definitely not vibrating. It’s all up here.” She touches the side of his head. 

“Okay.” He says, placing his hand back on his heart. 

“How are you Bill?” Bev places a hand on his forehead now. 

“Bad.” 

Bev rubs her temples. 

“Oh boy. Okay. Should I take you home?” 

Bill nods his head. 

Richie can’t really pay much attention to them right now. All he can really hear is his heartbeat and how it’s thumping against his chest just dying to explode and jump out. He doesn’t know if this will ever stop. He’s never had a high like this before and it just gets worse with each passing minute. 

“Why is this happening?” He asks, and he kind of laughs because he doesn’t know how else to handle the situation. He doesn’t want Bev to know how badly he’s freaking out and he doesn’t want to make it worse for Bill. 

“I don’t know babe. It happens though. You’re alright, Richie.” Bev gets up and grabs the vodka and placing it on the laundry machine and reaches out to grab Bill and help him up. His eyes are completely bloodshot and he’s also sweating. 

“Okay, come on.” Bev holds her hands out for Richie to take. There’s a part of his brain that is very aware that he’s making it worse by freaking out and it’s like he’s fighting with the high part of his brain trying to let it know that this is something that will pass but neither sides are communicating with each other and it's putting Richie through hell. 

“You are so goddamn tall.” Bev huffs, dragging Richie up. 

The room spins and he grips on to the wall. 

He wouldn’t tell her, but he felt like he was on the verge of an anxiety attack. It was getting harder for him to breathe, he couldn’t focus on just one thing, but he watched Bev, following her as best as she could while she dragged Bill, gripping onto his arm. Bill was talking a lot of nonsense but he didn’t understand what he was saying. The words were going in one ear out the other. He dug his nails into his palm, to remind himself that he was here—that he needed to stay here. 

They pushed through crowds of people, Bev looking back every so often just to clarify that Richie was still following her. His heart was thumping out of his chest and it was so loud he couldn’t hear the music even though he could feel it. 

“Bev.” He said once they got outside. 

The cool air feels so fucking good on his face, he lifts his head up but then he sways a little. 

“Richie?” She reaches out for him and he’s trying to remember what he was going to say to her. 

“My bike. I rode my bike.” Richie points to the general direction where he left it. 

“You’re going to have to pick it up tomorrow, there’s no way I can fit it in the car. Sorry.” Bev starts walking with Bill’s arm around her. She’s struggling and Richie walks towards them, getting on the other side of Bill because while he’s pretty high he’s not as fucked up as Bill. 

Bev unlocks the door and Richie despite his arms feeling like noodles, he gently places Bill in the backseat. Bill makes a groaning noise but curls his legs up and turns on his side. 

Richie buckles his seatbelt and he rolls the window down and sticks his hand out. The music blasts and Bev reaches out to turn the volume down. 

“You okay?” She asks before she starts to drive. 

He shakes his head, placing a hand on his heart. 

“I’ll be fine.” 

“I’m going to drop Bill off first, okay?” 

Richie nods, closing his eyes and paying attention to the lyrics. 

He will give this awful high one thing, the music sounded so fucking good. He reached over blindly and turned the volume up. 

He tried to focus on the way that the music was making him feel. It was like his entire body was absorbing each note, and if he weren’t so restrained he would sing. It was hard to talk and hard to move, he felt like he would have to be helped out of the seat because of how heavy he felt. The cold felt good on his hand, reminding him that he was still capable of feeling something that just wasn’t this weight on top of his chest. 

This was the worst fucking high of his life. 

_Fuck_ , he thought, as if it to make matters worse, _I was fired today._

He had plans with all the money that he was saving. He had plans of taking Eddie to Portland where there were both comic books and an arcade within the store. 

He sighed, looking up at the ceiling of the car and closing his eyes. 

He looked out the window, they were passing by all the older houses of Derry, they were bigger, the people living in them had been here their whole lives and would probably die here too. When they were kids they used to bike down here and imagine themselves living here one day because the idea of leaving Derry was just so unknown, now he couldn’t imagine being here for as long as he had to. 

_I need a car to leave first._ He thought, _I won’t have money for a car now._

It doesn’t take long for Bev to get to Bill’s house. She parks and turns off the car. 

“I got this, Rich. Just relax.” She tells him before closing the door. 

Bill makes a noise and tries to sit himself up, it takes a few tries but he eventually does it. Richie turns in his seat, it takes a lot of effort to do it but he does. 

“Hey, sneak him through the side door, you’ll have to open the gate but it’s not locked and neither is the side door. Just lay him on the couch he’ll be okay.” Richie advises before closing his eyes again. 

“S-sorry Bev.” Bill whispers. 

“It’s okay buddy. I get it. You were there for me.” 

Richie thinks he hears _sorry anyway_ from Bill but he can’t be sure. 

_Sorry anyway._

He didn’t know what he was really sorry about, maybe in his head it was to his boss, sorry for being the way that he was. He didn’t know how to stop it either. 

He can hear the closing of the gate, it echoes in his head and it kind of makes him laugh and he doesn’t know why. His emotions were everywhere, and that just makes him want to laugh harder. What a fucking night. 

He can hear Bev running towards the car and she closes the door and watches for a moment to see if any light in the house turns on. The coast is clear. She starts the car again. 

“Bev.” Richie whispers, almost like he’s afraid to ask, “Can you take me to Eddie’s?” 

He was pretty sure that the anxiety was getting worse because it was getting harder to breathe and he only knows one person who’s ever helped him to stop it. 

“Of course.” Bev reaches out to tug on a loose strand of hair. 

It used to make Richie jealous how close Eddie and Bill lived. It just didn’t seem fair to Richie that all Bill had to do was go down a couple streets and then he was there. It made sense, how close they were distance wise and friendship wise—but Richie always had trouble within his place among his friends but he liked to think that his friendship with Eddie was something special. Something more. Even if he didn’t know what that was. 

“I got fired.” Richie says as they’re pulling up to Eddie’s house, but not so close that Sonia could see the car. 

“Oh.” Bev says, she bites her bottom lip turning the car off and turns her body towards Richie. “I’m sorry.” 

He feels something stuck in his throat, threatening to come out. All the words that he wants to say, all the words that he’s been refraining from himself. 

(Like how he’s a disappointment, how he really won’t go anywhere in his life. It’s hard not to think it when he was surrounded by people who couldn’t fully understand him and his way of thinking.)

“It’s okay.” Richie whispers. “Thanks for the ride.” He reaches over and takes her hand and squeezes it. 

Richie gets out of the car and closes it as quietly as he can and starts walking towards the house. He doesn’t know how the hell he’s gonna do this as high as he is. He knows that if he really puts all his concentration on it that he can do it, it’s just the world was truly spinning and he just tripped on a small rock. 

He hears something, probably a cat in the bushes, but when he looks back it’s just so dark, he didn’t understand why none of the street lights worked but it made it more sinister. His heart was already going so fast and he couldn’t run for the life of him. He wouldn’t ever tell anyone how afraid of the dark he was, there were just too many things and thoughts that were hiding from him, waiting to jump out when he let his guard down. 

He sees Eddie’s light on, he speed walks towards the light, thinking that nothing could get him once he was close enough. 

Richie had put a small little pile of rocks in a secret location for when he visited Eddie late at night, he tried to find them in the dark. Normally he brought a flashlight with him. He wasn't in such luck now but he grabs a small rock and then aims. It bounces off the window and he waits for what feels like forever before he sees Eddie opening his window. 

“Richie?” He says squinting his eyes trying to find him. 

“Eddie I’m so goddamn high and I feel like I’m having a heart attack?” 

There’s a brief pause. 

“Okay. Can you get up here?” 

“I’m going to try.” Richie almost wants to laugh, but honestly he just wants to lay down. 

Richie does what he normally would, he climbs, but he slips and he falls onto the grass and he lands on something sharp because it’s poking his back. He can’t see Eddie’s face but he knows that he’s gotta be horrified. Eddie closes his window and the light briefly goes off in his room, and they both wait it out. Richie on the ground, Eddie up in his room. He doesn’t know if he’s afraid that him falling woke up his mom or if she was coming up the stairs and he heard her. Either way he gets himself up and he’s stumbling again trying to figure out a better way to do this. He sighs a little, wiping his hands on his pants and then closing his eyes telling himself to stop fucking spinning, as if it’ll stop the high somehow. He doesn’t know how he’s standing up right now. His entire body feels heavy and his legs especially like jello. 

He sees the light back on and he watches Eddie pull the window back up. 

“Are you okay?” Eddie says as quietly as he can. 

Richie is about to give him a thumbs up but it’s too dark for him to see. 

“Come on, Tozier.” He whispers to himself, getting up again and trying to find the normal grooves in the tree that he always uses. He’s got it, he thinks, one step and then another. He stops, holding onto the branch for dear life for a moment just to try and refocus before he’s on the roof and climbing through the window. He thanks God that the second floor isn’t as high as it could be, he thinks that if he fell a second time the worst he could get was concussion. 

Eddie reaches out, and his heart is already beating fast, but he feels the coolness of Eddie’s fingers taking twigs and leaves out of his hair with such a determined face. He lifts Richie’s chin up examining the rest of his face before he lets go. 

“Are you okay?” He asks again. 

Richie is about to give him a thumbs up but he sways. 

“I need to lay down.” 

“Okay.” Eddie grabs him by the wrist, walking him over to his bed and he gently pushes him to the bed and then walks over to his dresser, bending down to the bottom drawer and holds out the pajamas that Richie had left here for whenever he slept over. Richie reaches out for them and he starts changing. Eddie makes a small noise and turns around. 

“You don’t want to watch the show?” Richie teases. 

Eddie peeps a look before he snorts. “It’s not much of a show, is it?” 

Richie smiles and he falls back on the bed. 

“My heart is beating like crazy, I’m sweating, my vision is blurred if I stare at something too long.” Richie is trying to think of anything else that’s bothering him but those are the prominent ones other than the unmentionable broken heart that he gave himself. 

Eddie sits down on the free space of the bed, right by his head and he looks down at him. Richie tries to focus on him, but he needs to close his eyes. 

“I feel so….” Richie tries to find the words but they’re not coming to him. “I don’t know.” He kind of laughs it off shaking his head and reaching out to grab the stuffed beaver that Richie had won for Eddie a few years ago during the “big” Derry carnival. The prizes were very limited, the beaver signifying what this town once was the biggest prize that you could get and by luck Richie had won the rigged game and got it for Eddie. He holds it to his chest, thinking that maybe it’s weight that could help him to calm down. He’s lying like a mummy with the stuffed animal. 

“Who did you get the weed from?” Eddie’s voice is still quiet, reminding Richie that he can’t be loud which he knows, he just forgot for a second. Most of his rational thinking was slowly jumping out of the metaphorical window and he was really having a battle with it trying to reel them back in. 

“Bill…. And who knows who he got it from.” 

Richie hears a sigh from Eddie.

He feels Eddie’s fingers in his hair, it makes Richie open his eyes and Eddie is staring down at him with a look that he doesn’t understand. 

“You’re okay, just close your eyes.” Eddie’s whispers, and his fingers feel like magic. He wants to stay like this forever. 

“I don’t know why I’m so fucked up.” Richie laughs, his fingers digging into the beaver that doesn’t deserve it. He releases it because it doesn’t feel good and his arms fall at his side and they’re heavy. Everything is just so fucking heavy. 

“You smoked weed and got a bad high. That doesn’t mean you fucked up.” Eddie gently reminds him. 

“You’re too good Eddie.” Richie groans. “Stop it.” 

“No.” He can hear him say, and he knows that he’s smiling. He can _feel_ it.

It had been a long day. A really, really fucking long day. He was ready for it to end, but he also wanted to stay here forever with Eddie’s attention all on him. Eddie’s fingers brush against his forehead, cool and gentle thumbs glide against the bridge of his nose.

“Honk.” Eddie says with a small laugh, and Richie smiles. 

“Not fair. I can’t move my arms asshole!” 

Eddie does it one more time before he gently strokes the tip and his fingers are back in his hair. 

“I don’t remember a lot from my dad—but I can just vaguely remember how he would come into my room before he was about to go to sleep and would bundle me up like a baby. I used to have nightmares, like really bad nightmares and he knew that. So he’d take the blankets like this,” Eddie grabs one of the extra blankets laying on his bed and moves Richie a little, wrapping him up pretty snugly like a burrito almost. “And he would bend down and just massage my forehead and tell me that everything was going to be okay, and tell me that they were just nightmares—they couldn’t hurt me.”

Eddie never really talked much about his dad, Richie never really asked either. Eddie, whenever it was brought up, would just say there wasn’t much to talk about because he was young and everyone just never tried to pry for more information because they didn’t want Eddie to feel sad about it. So Richie takes the small little story about his father to heart, storing it safely and swearing not to tell another soul.

“That’s a really nice story, Eds.” Richie _feels_ protected. He knows that nothing can hurt him because Eddie Kaspbrak would do anything to keep Richie safe and he knew that. 

It was always like that though. He didn’t know why he was so surprised in the first place. There had been so many times when they were kids and people were being mean to Richie for whatever reason that he felt like he deserved and Eddie would stand in between them, being the smallest out of all of them and standing up for Richie ready to fight anybody who thought less of him. Richie never knew how to react to it because he had thought he was just a nuisance to everyone. All the fighting and bickering was just how they worked, but Eddie was someone that loved fiercely and Richie just feels lucky to be getting just a small percentage of that love. 

“Why did you get high in the middle of a weekday?” Eddie's hands are back in his hair and he’s trying to focus on how it feels instead of the thousand angry voices in his head telling him that Eddie was only doing this because he felt bad and telling him that he was going to be stuck like this forever. It was very exhausting to be in his brain right now. 

“I’m afraid that if I tell you you’ll judge me.” 

“When have I ever done that about something serious?” Eddie raises an eyebrow and Richie rolls his eyes. 

_Fair._

“I got fired from the comic book store.” He says, “I guess I just wasn’t what they wanted. I’m sorry—I know that you liked it there.” 

Eddie gives him a confused look before shaking his head. “No, fuck that. We can find somewhere else to go. Even if we have to travel far to go to it. Maybe when we’re older we could have our own comic book shop.” 

Richie wants to cry again.

He smiles up at Eddie. 

“Yeah? We’d be business partners. You ready to put up with all of that?” 

“I already do.” Eddie says tugging on a strand of Richie’s hair. 

The thumping in his chest is for a completely different reason now, he’s staring in Eddie’s eyes looking for something but he doesn’t know what. 

“I’m sorry that you got fired. That’s fucked up, they don’t deserve you or your music.” 

Sometimes Richie didn’t know what he deserved. He sometimes felt like he didn’t deserve anything good because he always seemed to make a mess of things that were so simple. It was hard to believe that someone thought that he deserved more—deserved better than what he got from people. 

“Why do you believe that?” Richie asks. 

He watches the way that Eddie scans his face and he gulps. 

“Because you’re my best friend.”

It’s Richie’s turn to gulp. He frees his one hand from the burrito and reaches up to touch Eddie’s face, poking at where his dimple would be if he smiled. 

(It does make Eddie smile.) 

“How do you feel now?” 

Richie sighs. “High. Sad. Heavy.” 

“It’ll pass.” 

“What will?” 

“All of it.” Eddie says with a small smile. 

“I don’t know how the fuck I’m going to tell my parents.” He closes his eyes thinking about it. “I feel like I’m just constantly disappointing them because I can’t just do things the way that they need to be done. I don’t know what’s fucking wrong with me, Eds.” 

“Come on, Rich, none of that. You tell them when you’re ready and hopefully they’ll understand. If they don’t then that’s on them. You’ll find something better. Something that fits for _you._ ”

Richie laughs. “What if that doesn’t happen?”

“It will.”

Richie for once let’s himself lay in the silence. The only noise is the clock ticking and their breathing. He can feel his heart rate slowing down, his vision is still a little warped but he knows that he just needs to sleep it off. Eddie’s fingers are so grounding he thinks to himself. 

“Earlier I thought I was going to die. I didn’t know where to really turn to or who to talk to because ....” He stops, chewing on his bottom lip for a moment before sighing, “I guess because I just wanted to talk to you.” 

He shrugs his shoulders, “I always do though, so. It’s not that surprising.” His voice drops and he closes his eyes. Afraid of being too vulnerable, afraid that Eddie may not feel the same way, afraid of so many things that he doesn’t quite understand yet. 

He wants to tell Eddie that he makes him feel safe. 

Then again Eddie makes him feel a lot of things, but safe is one of them. For someone who lived in such a hostile environment there was a warmth and kindness that Eddie gave towards his friends because he loved so fiercely and would do anything for anyone in their group because he saw worth in all of them. 

He opens one eye to stare up at Eddie who’s giving him the same fucking look from earlier. It’s overwhelming and it makes him feel warm inside but it’s also incredibly intense and scary. Eddie’s thumb glides across his cheek. 

“Do you remember that fight we had in ninth grade when we wouldn’t talk to each other for like a week? I told you it was because of something you said but to forget about it because it didn’t matter and I just wanted my best friend back. It wasn’t because of something you said, I think it was because of something you didn’t say, which isn’t fair to you because you can’t read my mind. When Connor started coming to our school and you started hanging out with him after school I just thought that maybe you were bored of us— _me_. Because you know how much I hated going to the arcade because of how dirty they are and…. Anyway. It’s stupid now—” He takes a breath. “But I always want to talk to you too.”

Richie feels like he should say something funny, to maybe crack an inappropriate joke to replace whatever that he’s feeling now because it’s easier when they’re like that. It’s not that they’ve never had serious talks before it’s just that this was different. It felt different. A shift of some sort but he didn’t know what that shift really was just yet. He just knew that it was there with the way that Eddie has been looking at him all night, and touching his hair and face like he was something important that he wanted to keep safe. 

“Well, I’ll never run out of things to say to you so I guess you’re just stuck with me.” Richie eventually says, and Eddie smiles down at him, it’s the special kind of smile that he does only for Richie. When his whole face scrunches up and his eyes kind of close, it’s incredibly adorable. 

“You’re going to make it big one day. You’ll see.” Eddie nods, looking away from him like he’s seeing the future now. “You’ll be famous like you always wanted to be.” He shrugs. 

“I don’t think so.” Richie snorts. “That’s a nice thought though.” 

Eddie looks down at him confused. “What do you mean?” 

Richie sighs. “I mean….” 

_What does he mean?_

It’s something deep, an insecurity wound that maybe never fully healed, and getting fired just made the wound a little deeper. He often felt that he was too much, something that not everyone knew how to deal with because his ideas were too grand, too out there, too loud, but that’s just who he was. He said he wanted to be famous a long time because then maybe that meant people liked him for him. He would be on center stage because he earned it. 

“I don’t know. I think I’m just scared of not being good enough.” 

“I’m going to kick that guys ass.” Eddie mutters under his breath before sighing. “Listen, fuck your boss. It just wasn’t meant to be, but that doesn’t mean that dictates the rest of your life. You’re funny, you’re likeable, you’re not that bad looking,” his voice kind of drops there, but he continues, “When you make it big I’ll get the bragging rights of saying that’s my best friend. I knew him before he was even likeable. I’m kidding. Although I will never forgive you for stealing all my toy cars and never giving them back.” 

_You’re not bad looking._

“Wow, if getting fired from my job was all it took for you to admit you have the hots for me I should have gotten fired sooner.” 

“Beep beep, fucker.” Richie can see that Eddie blushing and he smiles so fucking big at Eddie. 

“I just… want you to know that you’re capable of great things.” 

“You mean that?” Richie says, finding it hard to believe that anyone would think that of him. 

“Well I said it didn’t I?” Eddie’s smile is gentle, he tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. 

Richie has to break this bubble. It’s too intense, too intimate. 

“By the way, I still have your toy cars. They’re in a small box underneath my bed.” 

Eddie’s eyes widened. “What the fuck, Richie! It’s been years!” 

Richie laughs.

*

Richie is still a little high but at least he’s able to sit up now. He was starting to sweat underneath the blankets and Eddie quickly took them off of him and went quietly downstairs to get him some water and some crackers which Richie ate pretty quickly. 

“I think the worst of it is over now.” He says while finishing the last of the water, placing it on the bedside table. “I’m burning up here though, I want to sit on the roof.” 

Eddie grabbed a sweatshirt and followed him out the window and quietly closed it behind them. 

The cold air feels good on his skin. He closes his eyes, absorbing it up. He can feel Eddie move right next to him getting closer and he feels their legs touch. It feels electric or like he’s burning. He’s not sure which sensation he’s feeling now but he’s very aware of it. They’ve always been close, always taken up space in each other’s lives physically. It was how they worked and no one ever really questioned it because they were best friends and it obviously didn’t mean anything. 

It’s just, it did mean something to Richie. He thinks that maybe it might mean something to Eddie too. No one has ever looked at him the way that Eddie looks at him and he knows that Eddie isn’t looking at anyone else like that. It’s like Richie knows that there’s something there but he’s always been too afraid to touch it. Afraid that maybe if he rocked the boat it would flip and they would sink. 

He didn’t really know when his feelings for Eddie started to change, they just kind of did naturally. As if it was always meant to happen this way—his feelings for Eddie. They were so young when they met, so young to feel like this was someone that you just wanted to be around with all the time. Richie didn’t know what the feeling was until now. It was just. Love. 

It was just love with no place to go. 

He thought if he could repress the feeling then it would go away, he could love his best friend in the way that he was supposed to. 

_You always gotta be fucking different_ , he thinks to himself. 

“Well I’m fucking freezing.” Eddie says, bumping his knees against him. 

“It’s not my fault that you are so small.” 

“I’ll push you off this roof right now.” Eddie threatens, getting closer to Richie, invading his space like he does— _because he’s allowed to._

“I really would love to see you try, Eds.”

Eddie shoves him, making him move a little and Eddie moves with him. They were like magnets. 

Richie pulls his knees up and rests his chin on one knee before turning to look at Eddie. 

Eddie does the same, pulling his knees up and looking back at Richie. 

“Hey.” Richie says, almost quietly, like this is something that can be ruined if he spoke too loud. 

“Hey.” Eddie says back. 

Richie sighs. 

“Thank you.” He says. 

Eddie furrows his eyebrow. “For what?” 

“For taking care of me.” 

It’s Eddie’s turn to sigh. He hides his face away from Richie for a moment. 

When he turns back to look at him, there’s the stare again. 

“I’ll always take care of you. I’ve been doing it for a long time now.” 

Richie has to look away from him. It’s too much attention on him that’s making him squirm. 

“I don’t know why.” 

Eddie sighs. “Richie.” 

“What?” 

“Look at me.” 

Richie turns to look at him. 

Eddie reaches out and he’s holding his face in his hands, he’s brushing away all the hair in his eyes, tucking it behind his ears like he did earlier. He’s staring at him the way that he’s been staring at him this whole night. And Richie is wondering if he’s always stared at Richie like this and he was only realising it now. Eddie gulps, and he leans in and Richie stops breathing for a moment. 

Eddie kisses him. 

It’s a small peck at first. It’s enough to shut up his thoughts, and Richie thinks that maybe it was what he was going for, but when he goes in for another kiss he realises it’s because he genuinely _wants_ to kiss him. 

It’s not that Richie never thought about it, because he did. It’s just that this town was so small and he felt like he could never fully be safe thinking about Eddie in that way here. It feels so fucking good to defile all the loud and angry thoughts that he had about himself with Eddie’s mouth soft and gentle against his like this because Richie was sometimes so mean to himself. 

Eddie wraps an arm around his neck, pulling him closer and rests his hand on his knee and Richie reaches out and touches his face, his thumb gliding past the freckles that he always thought were so cute. 

Eddie is the first to pull away, but he doesn’t move his hands off of him. He doesn’t push him away. He rests his forehead against Richie’s and he can feel him smiling. 

“I didn’t even have to beep beep you.” He says with a small laugh, and Richie can feel his breath fanning his face. 

Richie laughs with him, his thumb brushing whatever skin he can reach. 

“Why did you do that?” Richie only pulls away a bit so he can look at him better. 

Eddie shrugs. “Because I wanted to.” 

Richie feels something tight in his throat. 

“I’ve been wanting to for a long time.” Eddie continues to talk, like he knows all the spiralling thoughts in Richie’s head. “I thought I was being pretty clear by all the touching earlier but….” He drops it, leaning in to kiss the side of Richie’s mouth and then his cheek. 

“Well, to be fair, I was very high.” 

Eddie nods. “I know, but even before then.” 

“I am slow.” 

“Oblivious.” Eddie corrects him, pulling him in for a hug. 

“That too.” Richie agrees, and he tucks his face in Eddie’s neck. 

He breathes Eddie in, trying to memorise the way that he smells and the way that Eddie is holding him, his hands running up and down his back. He loses himself in it, feeling protected from the outside world, protected from their town, and anyone who ever had a bad word to say about Richie. He presses his mouth against his neck, making Eddie briefly move, but he feels a tight squeeze. He’s stuck there, but he’s not complaining. 

Richie found it hard to believe that anyone could like him for him, but here was Eddie. 

Eddie who always knew what he wanted and he for some odd reason wanted Richie. _Liked_ Richie, and saw that he was worth sticking around for. He doesn’t know what to do with all the love that he was feeling, he felt like that it would just explode outside his chest.

So he lets himself be held, he can’t remember the last time that he was truly held, and he knew that it wasn’t like this. When he was a kid maybe, when the world just seemed too scary or mean his father would bend down and tell him it would be okay and just because other kids didn’t understand him didn’t mean that no one ever would. He thinks that it all must just come back to that. Richie felt so strongly about everything because he was afraid of being misunderstood or pushed away because of how different he was or felt, but here was Eddie, holding him and understanding him. 

“Let’s go inside.” Eddie presses a kiss to Richie’s neck and he pulls away, offering his hand for Richie to take. He grabs it, squeezing it tight and then watches as Eddie opens the window. 

The exhaustion of the entire day hits him when he steps into the warm room. He slumps a little walking over to the bed and getting under the covers while Eddie walks over to the light switch and turns it off. He feels Eddie getting into bed and scooting closer so he can reach out for Richie in the darkness. His fingers are cold and Richie grabs them and holds them in his hands to try and warm them up. 

He hears Eddie kind of laugh and then he feels his toes against his leg. 

“Shit!” Richie whispers and Eddie moves to giggle into his shoulder. “You’re a gremlin.” 

Eddie makes a satisfied noise, and then he feels him move in the bed wrapping his arms around Richie. It’s his own way of saying, _Hey, I got you._

Richie holds Eddie close, knowing that he’ll have to leave in the early morning without a goodbye. That’s just how it was where they lived, he had to believe that it wouldn’t be like this forever. One day they’d both get out of here and go to all the places that Richie has always wanted to visit with Eddie by his side. He thinks about earlier tonight when he was out on the grass with Bev, staring up at an endless sky thinking of how restricted and small he felt in this town, wanting to believe that there could be more for them out there. 

He moves his hands up and down Eddie’s back, he doesn’t even realise he’s doing until he stops and Eddie asks why he stopped. It was just natural, them being together. He smiles a little in the darkness at that. 

He guesses this is what it feels like to get what he wanted. 

“Your thoughts are really loud, Richie.” Eddie whispers. “Turn them down a little.” He can feel Eddie reach up his ear and tugs it before patting his cheek. 

“Sorry.” Richie pulls Eddie closer, squeezing him gently. 

“It’s okay. I got you, don’t worry about it. Just sleep now.” Eddie lets out a small breath that he feels on his chest. 

When Richie finally lets himself close his eyes it doesn’t take long for sleep to find him. He drifts, and he doesn’t dream, and it’s some of the most peaceful sleep he’s ever had. 

*

Richie wakes up before the sun does, he gently rolls Eddie over to the side grabbing the beaver stuffed animal and tucking it under him while pulling the covers up. He looks down at him and he smiles to himself before quickly changing out of his pajamas and into the clothes from the night before. 

He walks over to Eddie’s desk and finds a notepad with scribbles drawn over it, a tiny little turtle sits in the corner and then small little smiley faces that Richie thinks he drew when he was bored. He rips a page out and starts to write something down for Eddie to see when he wakes up. 

_Sorry I had to leave, but we both know why. Thanks for everything Eds. I’ll swing by in the daylight maybe we can go to a movie or something and get up to questionable things in the back seats or we can do nothing. I don’t really care as long as it’s with you. I’ll see you soon, Spaghetti._

_Love,_

_Richie_

He places it on his side of the bed where he can find it, and walks towards the window so he can head out. He gives Eddie one last look before he heads down. 

He still has to get his bike. He doesn’t mind this walk so much, he never really appreciated the early mornings, the sky was a dark orange and yellow and the temperature outside was nice and cool. He felt better. It still sucked knowing that he didn’t have a job anymore and he thinks about what Eddie said last night. It just wasn’t for him. He was capable of doing great things, maybe he just needed to get out of Derry first to achieve them. Either way, it didn’t matter. Eddie thought that he was good enough, he didn’t really need anything else. 

_It’s a new day, Richie._ He could hear Eddie say. 

He supposed that it was.

**Author's Note:**

> [reblog](https://gaykaspbrks.tumblr.com/post/612866800510730240/were-never-done-with-killing-time-can-i-kill-it) on tumblr.
> 
> talk to me on tumblr [@gaykaspbrks](https://gaykaspbrks.tumblr.com/) or twitter: [@gaykaspbrks](https://twitter.com/gaykaspbrks)


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